Trains of Thought With No Destination

2011 September 22

A Fascinating Read on a Boring Topic

Ever since reading Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities I have been fascinated with urban planning, probably because it allows me to elaborate on all the ways most urban planning is so botched. Particularly suburbs, which being a country bumpkin I loathe.

The Atlantic has a marvelous article on just another way suburbs are bad:

For decades, families fled the dense urban grid for newer types of neighborhoods that felt safer, more private, even pastoral. Through their research, Garrick and colleague Wesley Marshall are now making the argument that we got it all wrong: We’ve really been designing communities that make us drive more, make us less safe, keep us disconnected from one another, and that may even make us less healthy.